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Music in Video Games Music in Video Games An Interactive Qualifying Project Report Submitted to the Faculty of WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science By Shiyi Liu Yizhen Wang August 25, 2018 Advised by: Prof. V.J. Manzo, PhD Worcester Polytechnic Institute 1 1. Abstract Through decades of evolution of video games industry, the audio element has become an inseparable part of the video game experience. However, for different game genres, the literature is still sparse regarding how background music (BGM) fits a game well in terms of being compatible and reciprocal. This report explores the function of video game music and what makes the BGM an irreplaceable part of the gameplay experience so that the players do not switch off the background sound. To achieve our goal, an experiment was prepared to evaluate how BGM influences people’s perceptions toward the game. By providing video game clips with switched BGM to subjects and surveying their perceptions and feelings of consistency between the clips and BGM, we were able to gain insight into how music may affect people’s game play experience. 2 2. Introduction From 1958, the birth of the first video game Tennis for Two till now, the video game industry grows from zero to an 82 billion dollars industry. As video games become increasingly important in human daily life, the academic study in video games goes deeper. Video game music as an essential part of video game often being ignored in previous studies attract our attention. Our project could be divided into four main parts, introduction, background, experiment and conclusion. First, the introduction part explains the structure of our project. Second, the background part contains the history, feature and function of video game music help to state our question, what makes video game music effectively affect people’s game play experience and figures out the variation of our problem. Third, the experiment part provides methodology of our experiment as well as analyzation of our data. Finally, the Conclusion part states that the consistency between video game music and the game itself could be affected by various factors. It is hard for people to detect which exact part affects the consistency. However, we still hope our study could give the subsequent studies a hint in this field. 3 3. Background 3.1. History of video game music In the past 60 years, a new kind of interactive media called video game were developed rapidly. Considerable attention has been paid to video games on how video games entertain people and how could game developers make better games. However, game audio as an important component of video games are often being ignored. People consider video game music as a kind of useless and substitutable part of a game. For example, Microsoft insistently believed that music in every Xbox 360 game should be replaceable with the user’s own music files (Harlin 2018). Thus, to enhance the importance of video game music, it is necessary for us to trace back to the birth of video game music and figure out the role BGM played in video games. The game industry was born from a war time era with the advanced technology. In 1958, Willy Higginbotham, a young nuclear physicist created Tennis for Two, which is believed to be the first video game in the world. By using the computer previously work for the military projects, this interactive entertainment experiences opened the door of the video game industry. The very first arcade video game was called Computer Space, from 1971. It only has one sound channel which noise and tones blended in as needed. However, the hit of the video game industry did not exist until, Atari’s Pong one of the most famous game in the history came out. In Pong, beeping sound runs out whenever the ball hits the paddle. Although the existence of the sound in Pong was considering to be a small accident, it is still an important factor of making the sound in video games famous (Collins 2008, p8-9). At the early age of sound in video games, sound had been used as a tool to attract people to the arcade. By 1980, due to the limitation of the technology, although most game 4 systems had co-processors for sound, continuous music in game had yet to exist. (Collins 2008, p15). The birth of the home console systems pushes the industry into a new direction. In 1985, Nintendo launches its first console with five channels, the Nintendo Entertainment System, often known as the NES. Games like Super Mario Bros (Nintendo, 1985) and Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, 1986) not only helped Nintendo to open the America market but also proved the potential of the home consoles. Nevertheless, music in those games also becomes the memory of the growth of one generation. Another great leap forward in game audio occurred in 1989 with stereo channels (two fixed voices on one channel) for the NEC Turbo Grafx 16 (6 channels) and Sega Genesis (10 channels). In 1990s, as more and more home console existed in the market, the audio hardware of those home consoles went even further. In 1999 Nintendo 64 has the capability of 100 channels and (48kHz) better-than-cd quality. After entering in the 2000s, 2006 is a landmark year for game audio with Sony’s PlayStation 3 released. With up to 512 channels, 8 outputs (7.1 Dolby Surround at 96kHz) DSP and Super Audio CD capability, PlayStation 3 gives players a better game audio experience than any other home console at that time. The success of the next generation home console such as PlayStation 3, Xbox One and Nintendo Wii shows the capability of home consoles and provides players awesome auditory effect. Along with the development of arcades and consoles, the gaming industry also focused on personal computers. In 1977, Home computing gets its first real audio experience with the Apple II Home Computer. Soon after, home computers such as the IBM PC, Atari 400 & 800, Commodore 64 and others followed from 1977 into the late 1980s. At those days, most home computers just have three to four sound channels, and one or more channel capable of both variable tone and noise. For many years audio of personal computer remains almost the same , just like the Atari 2600 sound capabilities. However, breakthrough in music technology appears as Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) standard exists. (Aska 2017) Due to the fact that a 5 MIDI recording is made, only the data about that instrument (note on or off, pitch, volume, etc) is recorded and played back, the MIDI file is much smaller than the digitally recorded audio clips. 1983, MIDI became the standard for musical instruments, drum machines, and other audio- related equipment to communicate with one another both live, and on the computer. In the late 1980s, the concept of the Sound Cards (an external hardware dedicated to playing sound so that the CPU could do other tasks) was taking hold. In 1989, Sound Blaster which introduced by the Creative Labs, led sampled audio in games, and a basic synthesizer with the ability of MIDI playback. However, after the existence of CD-ROM technology, game developers abandoned MIDI in games owning to the fact that CD-ROM helped to produce sound more realistic (Collins 2008, p63). Today, sound cards of personal computers have caught up with the current state of console audio which help to provide PC gamers wonderful gaming experiences. The history of sound in video games were highly effected by technology evolvement. As home console and PC gaming become more and more mature, arcade is on the wane. Other gaming platforms such as mobile phone, handhold console and rhythm-action add-ons also made the game industry more diverse. With less technology constraints, game audio developers are able to create more consistent music and helps to increase the reality of the games. Although the function of video game music is still being evaluated, the importance of game music is above suspicion. 3.2. Feature of video game music Game audio could be divided into two parts, diegetic sounds and non-diegetic sounds. According to Karen Collins, diegetic sounds are source music, narratives and other sounds for characters that help video games to tell its story. Whereas non-diegetic sounds contain background music and sound effects (Collins 2008, p184). 6 As for non-diegetic sounds, background music in video games are different from any other audio experience since it is non-linear. It is a kind of dynamic audio with both interactiveness and adaptiveness. Unlike music in films or TV programs, players could engage in the music playing process in video games. Background music may either be interactive (change based on gamer’s action) or adaptive (change based on the changing environment) or both at a specific time in the game and the features may change throughout the game play. 3.2.1. Adaptive music Music in video games could be adaptive when it changes with the gameplay but unaffected by the play’s action (Collins 2008, P126). One of the most famous multiplayer online battles arena, Dota2 (Valve, 2011) shows the adaptiveness of music by manipulating it’s background music when the “night theme” of the game begins. 3.2.2. Interactive music Background Music could also be interactive when the music changes due to the player’s action. In Portal2 (Valve Corporation, 2011), the background music changes in mix and volume when the character move in space ("Portal 2'S Dynamic Music - An Interview with Composer Mike Morasky, And Five Tracks To Listen To Now!" 2011).
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